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This page is designed to take over my current portfolio, as well as a place to dump all my works in progress. If you'd like to see my work, go to the Portfolio Page.

Saturday, June 01, 2013

Bene Gesserit Sketches

Finally got some time to sit down and bang out some more ideas for Dune. Hard to say which one is thee design, since there is a lot of variety within the Bene Gesserit as to their roles and their characters in the books-- I just want to get some ideas down. One of these might turn into Lucilla, another might turn into Mohiam, etc. I have quite a few more ideas for Reverend Mothers and Imprinters based on these designs that I haven't fleshed out yet.

For those that don't know: The Bene Gesserit are essentially Space Illuminati comprised entirely of superhuman women, who sexually imprint people for political power and for their clandestine breeding plan to create a genetically superior being to rule the universe. Simple, Right? It's hard to say that they're really "bad guys," since there are Bene Gesserit characters that Frank writes as sympathetic and relatable and in fact do very good and constructive things. However, they are manipulative and mysterious as hell and their ultimate motivation is control; they've avoided being an actual political power, yet they are unavoidably a part of it.

They don't have a ton of description other than that they are super-hot in a sexy nun sort of way, and they wear simple, black hoods. I wouldn't say these are super-simple, but I tried to go for bold and stark designs. I've used accents of gold since I love how it was used in the David Lynch film, but I also used hints of orange. Here's my theory; back in the day, royalty wore purple because it was a very expensive dye, so it became a color of power and wealth. In Dune, Spice is the most valuable substance in the universe which is the color orange, so it would make sense to me that orange is the new purple! I'm trying to find a text Frank wrote that would support this, but for now I am inferring it.

3 comments:

Those are slick designs and now have redefined what Ben Gesserit look like in my mind.

I like Lynch's Gaius Helen Mohiam. Her baldness gave a more severe aspect and his representation The Voice definitely had a serpentine quality which that baldness kind of enhances.

In her first scene in the books she seemed more Matronly but Lynch's GHM is this turbo stiff-necked, scary Nun and that worked for me. As a whole I feel BG ladies should look more like what you have done here.